Chapter 21: The Disappearance of Ha Si-ho?
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 21: The Disappearance of Ha Si-ho?
Maybe he’s calling to check if Si-ho got home safely.
“Hello?”
[Mr. Kang Ha-chan, right?]
As soon as I answered, I heard Ha Seo-ho’s voice.
“Yes, that’s me. What’s this about…?”
[Si-ho isn’t there, is she.]
“What? She left a long time ago.”
His sudden question about Si-ho caught me off guard.
Don’t tell me Si-ho still hasn’t made it home.
I glanced at the clock. It was already past 10 p.m.
A good amount of time had passed, since I’d been looking up information on my computer after getting home.
At least three hours had gone by since I saw her off.
Did she go out to hang with friends?
She might be smaller than her peers, but she was nineteen years old.
For a normal high school student, 10 p.m. was a reasonable time to be heading home after a night out.
But considering Si-ho’s personality, I couldn’t bring myself to think that was the case.
She wasn’t very sociable.
As such, I doubted she had many friends to hang out with so late at night.
More importantly, I don’t think she’s the type to go out like that in the first place.
It was just a prejudice, but that was the impression I got from her.
“Are you unable to contact her?”
The biggest problem was that Ha Seo-ho had gone out of his way to call me.
If Si-ho wasn’t home, he could have just called her. The fact that he was calling me meant he couldn’t get in touch with her.
I reflexively started getting dressed.
Si-ho may be an A-rank spatial ability user, but something could have happened.
What if she messed up the coordinates for her teleport?
The thought sent a chill down my spine.
The worst kind of accident for a spatial ability user was getting their body caught and severed inside a building’s wall.
If she had suffered an accident like that on her way home and passed out from shock and blood loss, it could be an emergency.
[Ah, sorry. I know what you’re thinking, but that’s probably not it.]
Just then, Ha Seo-ho spoke, as if sensing my movements.
[That kid is skilled enough to set safe coordinates even for places she’s never been.]
“Doesn’t that make the situation even more serious?”
A user as capable as Si-ho was out of contact and still hadn’t returned.
That obviously meant the situation was worse.
[I have a hunch. Hah… I just called you on the off chance. It’s fine, so don’t worry. I’ll look for her myself.]
With that, Ha Seo-ho hung up.
Having already changed my clothes, I blinked a few times before scratching my head.
An S-rank hunter, Ha Seo-ho, said he would look for her himself.
That was far better than a civilian like me trying to find her.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling of anxiety.
She was a hunter under my management.
If something happened to her, it would naturally be a problem for me.
I sent Seo-ho a text saying I would help look and then headed outside.
Si-ho was a spatial ability user.
From a civilian’s perspective, trying to find out where she might have gone if something went wrong was practically impossible.
That’s why I decided to call the person with the most expertise in this area for advice.
Ring, ring, ring—
After a few rings, the call was abruptly picked up.
“Domi-oppa, sorry, I’m in a rush right now. I’ll call you later. Love you.”
And with those words, the line went dead.
The person I had called was none other than Ahyu.
“Why does she always add the ‘love you’?”
It was amazing that she could say something like that even when she sounded so frantic, but I was now lost in thought.
I couldn’t get advice from Ahyu, who was my closest contact.
So, who was left?
I scrolled through my phone’s contact list, and a few names passed by.
The next one after Ahyu was Kkotbi.
However, ever since she revealed to me that she was Blackstar Yua, she would occasionally tell me about her schedule.
It usually came up by chance during our conversations, but I wasn’t foolish enough to forget what I’d heard.
She definitely said she had a broadcast filming today.
She had told me she’d be filming from 8 p.m. to 12 a.m. to promote her new song.
To accommodate the schedules of various celebrities, filming often ran late into the night.
“She’s out too, then.”
Left with no choice, I scrolled further down my contact list.
For a moment, Baek Seol-hyang from the World Returnee Association came to mind, but I didn’t have her number.
We’d run into each other often, but there had never been a reason for us to exchange numbers.
And that was only natural.
Kkotbi and Ahyu were special cases because our relationships were forged through a game. Why on earth would I exchange numbers with Baek Seol-hyang?
She was the CEO of my company, after all.
Then, I thought of one more person I could call.
Right, there was her.
Ring, ring—
The phone rang for a while.
Click.
Then, thankfully, I heard the sound of the call being answered on the other end.
*
4
The streets were dark.
I stood waiting for someone in the middle of the neon-lit city.
With summer just around the corner, the heat lingered even at night. I was fanning my shirt when I noticed the gazes of the people on the street were all focused on one spot.
Following their line of sight, I saw a woman in a nun’s habit—completely out of place on a summer night—walking toward me.
“It’s a nun.”
“Is that cosplay or something?”
“This late at night?”
Listening to the murmurs of the crowd, I pressed a hand to my slightly throbbing forehead.
Why did she come dressed like that?
The returnee, Orjia.
She was the only acquaintance I could ask for help in this situation.
Still wearing the eyepatch with the strange symbol, she saw me and clasped her hands together.
“Hello, Mr. Ha-chan.”
“Aren’t you hot?”
“This is the best attire for receiving Lord Aulaps’s blessing.”
She didn’t say she wasn’t hot.
I gave a bitter smile and decided to move with her to escape the gathering stares.
“It was a search for a missing person, correct?”
“Yes, I have a picture here.”
Before leaving, I had taken a picture of the ID photo from Ha Si-ho’s file with my phone.
When I showed it to her, she looked at the photo from behind her eyepatch before shifting her gaze back to me.
“I must say, I’m surprised you asked me for help. I would have thought you’d have others to turn to, like Ms. Heavenly Demon or Chairperson Baek Seol-hyang.”
“Ah, well, Ahyu said she was busy, and I don’t have Ms. Baek Seol-hyang’s number…”
As I spoke, my words suddenly caught in my throat.
Wait a minute, what did I just hear?
“The Chairperson?”
“Yes, the Chairperson.”
Ms. Baek Seol-hyang… is the Chairperson of the World Returnee Association?
My head started to spin.
I knew she held a high position in the association, but I never imagined she was the Chairperson.
She wasn’t just a big shot; she was a titan.
The World Returnee Association is practically shrouded in secrecy for ordinary people.
Even for someone like me, who was very interested in returnees, all information beyond what was publicly disclosed was completely concealed.
The identity of the Chairperson, in particular, was one of the most heavily guarded secrets.
A returnee acting as the Chairperson’s deputy always handled the association’s public statements.
For whatever reason, it seemed Ms. Baek Seol-hyang had wanted to keep her position as Chairperson hidden all this time.
I’d heard rumors that the head of the World Returnee Association was Korean.
But I never would have guessed it was Baek Seol-hyang. I was utterly bewildered.
Is this something I’m even allowed to know?
No, before that, have I said anything stupid to her?
More importantly, that crazy girl Ahyu… she acts like that toward the Chairperson?
Damn it, I’ll think about this later.
I shook my head, forcing the thoughts away.
Right now, finding the missing Si-ho was more important.
“More importantly, what do you think? She’s a spatial ability user. Will you be able to find her?”
At my question, Orjia stared at the phone for a moment before looking around.
Her gaze settled on something, and she spoke to me.
“Let’s move to a higher place.”
“Move where, exactly?”
Orjia pointed to the roof of a ten-story building.
Building rooftops are often locked. I wasn’t sure if we could get up there easily.
As if to solve my dilemma, Orjia held out her arms.
“Let me hold you.”
“…”
Is this really happening?
At that moment, my eyes were drawn to her chest, which seemed to be proving its own magnificence despite the nun’s habit.
“Are you embarrassed? In terms of age, there is a century of difference between you and I, Mr. Ha-chan.”
She was from the Joseon Dynasty, so she wasn’t wrong.
But no matter how much you mention age, appearances are still a thing.
Orjia stared at me for a moment before lowering her arms and turning around.
She then turned her back to me, bent her knees, and crouched down.
“Then please get on my back.”
No, that’s also a bit…
Just then, a thought occurred to me.
“Can’t you just go alone?”
I wouldn’t be much help in finding Si-ho anyway.
There was no reason for me to follow her to the rooftop.
It would be better for Orjia to go alone than to take me with her.
Orjia seemed to reach the same conclusion. She slowly stood up and cleared her throat.
“You’re right.”
It seemed the thought that we had to move together had made her momentarily forget.
She looked a bit embarrassed, twirling a strand of her hair for a moment before turning around.
“I’ll be back.”
“Yes, please.”
After saying that, Orjia leaped effortlessly to the roof of the ten-story building with a single, light jump.
Seeing it again, the physical abilities of a returnee were truly incredible.
I stared up at the building, waiting for her to come down.
A moment later, Orjia landed in front of me with a faint cloud of dust.
Passersby flinched in surprise at her sudden appearance, but I paid them no mind and asked her, “So? Did you find her?”
“Yes, though she’s a bit far.”
“Where is she?”
She asked me to open a map on my phone.
After looking it over, she pointed to a specific spot.
“Here.”
The location was none other than Bukhansan Mountain.
Looks like I’ll be hiking in the middle of the night.
*
6
Halfway up Bukhansan Mountain.
A young girl sat on a deserted forest path.
She idly twirled the end of her hair with her fingers before shifting her gaze to one side.
Reflected in her eyes was a forest landscape.
“It’s started.”
She dropped down from a tree and began to walk forward with heavy steps.
A distortion in space.
It was the initial sign of a dimensional gate.
If left alone for another hour, a gate would open, and dimensional entities would pour out.
Knowing this all too well, her expression soured.
The mere sight of a dimensional gate stirred up a deep-seated hatred within her; it was the source of her most terrible memories.
“Disappear.”
The girl reached out and clenched her hand in the empty air.
At that moment, the space began to slowly warp, twisting with a sharp crackle.
A slight shimmer remained in the air, but she brushed her hand, wiping it away.
“Huuuh.”
A soft sound escaped her lips as she wiped away the beads of sweat forming on her brow.
She pressed a hand to her chest, as if in pain, and practiced breathing evenly.
Her nose started bleeding again, and she wiped it away with her sleeve.
“This is nothing.”
This much was fine.
Fighting the urge to close her heavy, tired eyes, she leaned her body against a tree.
Rustle—
Just then, the sound of rustling bushes reached her ears.
Thinking it was a wild animal, she turned her head, only to see a man standing there.
He wore round, pitch-black glasses and leaned on a cane, appearing to be blind.
“Ah, found ya.”
The moment he grinned.
A bolt of lightning struck down before her eyes.
